A Villain with Good Publicity is one of the most frustrating opponents a hero can ever face. On the surface, this villain works within the system and commands a great deal of respect from the average citizen, but behind the scenes, they conduct all manners of nastiness. Even the heroes (or the audience!) may be fooled until The Reveal, unaware that The Man Behind the Man is someone so publicly trusted.

Should the heroes know the truth, they're still stymied by the fact that no one else does. Attempts to bust the villain will be met with harassment lawsuits, breaking & entering or assault charges, or bad press. The heroes may even be falsely painted as villains in the public eye. (Some heroes embrace this image and become the Lovable Rogue or the Anti-Hero.) Should the heroes turn up actual evidence that something is up, it'll probably be ripped up by the villain's crack legal team (which Villains With Good Publicity always have), or spun to look like honest behavior.

The Villain With Good Publicity is very good at getting the hero (or other innocents who get too close to the truth) accused of criminal activity. Then again, heroics are 90% based on breaking and entering, stalking, trespassing, assault, battery, and espionage anyway, so he may have a point there.

In a TV series, a Villain With Good Publicity is a good way to preserve the status quo; the best the hero can hope to do is foil a particular plot, not bust the actual villain. Although not always legally invincible, often the only way to defeat this foe permanently is to kill him. Heroes in this situation will frequently try to Trash Talk the villain, or tell him he won't get away with it.

This villain may be portrayed as a hero (or the hero), and may even think of himself as the hero. His villainous acts might even be portrayed as heroic. Alternate Character Interpretation may lead to viewing a story's hero as a Villain With Good Publicity.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

This trope is practically the hat of the Machine Empire in Galaxy Express 999. Virtually every world in two galaxies sees them as the wave of the future. Even the protagonist, who watched his own mother being brutally gunned down by Machine-Humans, simply concludes that if he'd been a Machine-Human himself, he would have been powerful enough to stop them.

Muruta Azrael from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is all-but-worshipped by the EA generals, has the Earth's rulers in his pocket, and Natarle has heard of him. His sucessor, Lord Djibril, is regarded as a pale shadow of him, primarily because he has none of his clout (well, that and his ridiculous choice of clothing).

Chairman Durandal in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny is another good example, his smooth-talking ways and self-positioning as a liberator from the evil Earth Alliance gives him great popularity both in PLANT and on Earth. Though it starts to unravel when Lacus Clyne appears on a worldwide broadcast publicly denouncing him, and at the same time exposing that he'd been using a body double to impersonate her.

The Claw from GUN×SWORD has a positively ridiculous amount of this, and most viewers will probably have to keep reminding themselves that this guy has killed two women in cold blood and his group is behind every evil thing seen throughout the series. This is even crazier when you realize how he got all this support: He was merely a really nice guy who was there for people who needed him!

President Funny Valentine (yes, that's actually his real name) of Steel Ball Run, despite being a very morally ambiguous character who's done more than a few despicable acts during his tenure, manages to be incredibly popular among the American population due to his amazing speaking skills and the fact that he has a series of scars on his back in the design of the American flag. At one point, he's even able to briefly convince Johnny Joestar about the justness of his cause.

After a time jump, the main character of Guyver wakes up to find that the villainous organization Chronos has taken over the world...and the Guyver is a villain.

Light in Death Note, as Kira, gradually gains more and more public support. In spite of being a mass murdering vigilante, he is admired by many for reducing crime rates through fear and power as if he were some deity smiting the wicked (which happens to be exactly how he sees himself). During the Time Skip, entire nations announce that they endorse Kira.

Light, as Light, is actually a straighter example; he's a popular, intelligent, charming ace son of the police chief, who's revered and admired by the people around him... who also happens to be a crazySerial KillerMagnificent Bastard.

This is a theme in the Punk Hazard arc as two separate villains get this treatment. The primary Big Bad of the arc, Caesar Clown, has devoted followers that call him Master, but whom he sees as mere experiment fodder. The second is Marine Vice-Admiral Vergo, who puts up the front of A Father to His Men but is revealed to be in league with the mysterious "Joker." Oddly enough, the character in this arc with the worst reputation actually chooses to ally with the Straw Hats.

The first to do this was Captain Kuro, who first appears as Kaya's loyal, if stuffy, butler Klahadore. As he tells his subordinate Django, the three years he spent Kaya's employ was to build up a good reputation, so that when Kaya dies in the Black Cat Pirates' raid, no one in the village will think twice about Kaya leaving him her fortune- provided Django hypnotizes her into making said will before dying, anyway.

More recently, Donquixote Doflamingo has been this to Dressrosa. To the public he is a benevolent rightful king who rescued the country from the previous ruler who apparently went insane one day and started indiscriminately killing civilians, and ushered in a new age of peace, wealth and prosperity. Behind the scenes though, he is a bloodthirsty pirate and underworld crime lord who usurped the throne by using his string powers to puppet the king and his army into committing atrocities. He used his subordinate, Sugar's ability to turn any troublemakers, criminals and opponents into subservient toys and mindwipe any memories of them from the world.

The homunculus Wrath in Fullmetal Alchemist (the 2009 Brotherhood version, for the anime) is Fuhrer King Bradley, the leader of all Amestris, as revealed in a Wham Episode during his battle with Greed. The difference between the persona he puts on that the people believe and who he is underneath it all is both vast and amazing. But the real kicker is that his true nature is known to the entire military high command, who are knowingly collaborating with the enigmatic "Father" and his homunculi, and can be found discussing, among other things, possible "human sacrifices".

Similarly, Pride is posing as the Fuhrer's son and pretends to view Edward as his role model.

There's also Father Cornello, who convinces everyone that he's a holy man when he's really a fraud out for power. Edward exposes him using an Engineered Public Confession, but even after this, once the Elrics leave the city, Envy uses his shapeshifting powers to impersonate Cornello, successfully regaining enough followers to plunge the city into civil war, a perfect pretext for Amestrian military intervention.

In the anime version of Chrono Crusade, Aion becomes this when he brainwashes and controls the Holy Maiden, Rosette Christopher. Because she heals and takes care of the people, they begin to believe that the Maiden and anyone related to her are chosen by God to lead them. Aion uses this to his advantage and cultivates his followers into a cult, who attack Chrono and the Order.

Griffith from Berserk following his rebirth reforms the Band of the Hawk into an unstoppable mercenary army composed of humans and demons, and is the only group capable of pushing back back the invading Kushan army. His victories lead to more good publicity, and nets him the hand of Princess Charlotte and the blessing of the Pontiff after some prophetic dreams. Eventually he uses magic to build Falconia, the only city capable of protecting humans from all the unfriendly demons in the world. Of course, Griffith gained the power to control his demon army be sacrificing his friends to demons, and his is the one responsible for the Pontiff's visions.

Not just that - Imagine the person responsible for killing billions of people with a killer virus being religiously praised as world leader.

Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei gives us Mayo Mitama, a villain with "bad bad" publicity. In that she's a Devil in Plain Sight with the Face of a Thug, but since people are afraid of being accused of being prejudiced and judging her by appearances, they always assume she's innocent. Her name in Japanese, Mitama Mayo, translates to "Exactly what she looks like."

Bleach has Aizen, who is not only trusted, but appears to be loved by many, if not most, in Soul Society. This guy has been sneakily plotting for over a century, and apparently arranged things so that everyone who discovered his evil plan was banished from Soul Society before they could reveal him.

Haruhi Suzumiya gives us a milder version of this in the form of Asakura Ryoko, who is a beloved class representative that cares about everyone and is very sweet and personable. She was also sweet and personable when she tried to turn Kyon into meaty chunks to get Haruhi to react. Despite this, everyone in the class - except Kyon - is saddened by her sudden "move" to Canada. This also applies to the AU, where she's still just as popular, and hating her just cements Kyon's assumed insanity to the rest of his classmates.

Kaitou Kid in Magic Kaito and Detective Conan, a Phantom Thief with an enormous fan following; huge crowds of people often show up to his heists to cheer him on, much to the police's displeasure. He even takes advantage of this to pull his tricks; he will appear next to his target in his Kaitou Kid disguise, then throw a smoke bomb and quick-change into a common bystander and meld into his crowd of admirers so the police can't find him.

Hattori in Nabari no Ou is a popular political critic in front of the world, earning many fans (including Miharu's grandma) because of his charisma. He's not so nice behind the scenes, though...

From Slayers, Rezo the Red Priest. Upheld far and wide as a powerful do-gooder of nearly messianic proportions, even by his own underlings, nearly every undertaking of his is actually a cover for experiments to cure his blindness, most of which involve scores of unwitting Innocent Bystanders. Some indications in-story point to the possibility that he's a Fallen Hero who long ago fully lived up to his reputation, only resorting to such extreme measures after centuries of unknowing influence from a dead god since birth.

Onimaru is a demon lord who conquered the whole of Japan by brainwashing the ministers and destroying those who rebelled against him with a huge Wave Motion Gun from Mount Fuji. Yet the Japanese people seen around aren't too troubled by that.

Gaining his good publicity precisely because of his villainy, The Laughing Man has become a self-propelled pop culture phenomenon in Japan in 2030.

It helps that most of humanity has a chip in their brains that make them unable to disagree with him, no matter how extreme his actions are.

A mild example, but Manami from Life is one of the most popular girls in school but also becomes an antagonist.

The Britannian administration of "Area 11" from Code Geass, and, by extension, the Emperor himself, at least among the Britannian populace. Of course, this is probably to be expected given the xenophobic level of national pride displayed by many citizens.

Another example would be Clovis who, during his ridiculously short screen time, is seemingly well received, by the Britanians anyway. He was very media savvy, if nothing else.

The only people who seem to care in-series are Nunnally, Euphemia, and Cornelia. And even Euphemia, who cares greatly for Clovis, is willing to completely forget about him in light of what Clovis actually did - which is implied to be not as important as revenge/justice - and stop Lelouch from hanging out with those naughty friends of his and beating up their mutual sister. Of course, considering the fact that Clovis committing mass murder on the inhabitants of the ghetto is blamed on those same people, his publicity is just standard Britannian policy. The massive turnout for his funeral IS a requirement for all school-goers.

Sonic X at one point does this with Eggman, when he claims to have blocked the sun by accident when his "Eggmoon" stops working, when he really uses it as an excuse to be a hero and sell his lights for income. His robot lackeys, meanwhile, switch sides more often than football supporters. With the aforementioned sun-blocking via his Eggmoon, Sonic goes about destroying Eggman's towers, and even Sonic's friends perceive him to be the villain until Sonic explicitly tells everybody that the Eggmoon couldn't block out the sun all the time unless Eggman was moving it by himself.

An in-universe example in Tiger & Bunny occurs with Lunatic, a mysterious NEXT who only goes after murderers and criminals and kills them to atone for their sins. After years of seeing idealistic, squeaky clean heroes, fans of HeroTV love him. But after the regular heroes defeat Ouroboros, his popularity is short-lived,

Seto Kaiba counts as this, mostly in the Toei series and the original manga. Kids adore him and he does everything he can to give to them. However, when Yugi and his friends come into his life, he develops a homicidal rage towards them. (He gets better, though, despite his later attempt to kill them on Alcatraz Island.)

Zigzagged with Kaiba's adoptive father Gozaburo. Originally, he was a very public figure who was thought of as a charitable philanthropist, which was technically the truth, but it was an act by the ruthless corporate tycoon he was to gain PR; regardless, he was at most a Villainy-Free Villain in Seto's origin. He didn't truly become a threat and a true villain until the Virtual Nightmare Arc when he plotted nuclear annihilation via computer takeover.

Rex Goodwin in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's. Most residents of Neo Domino saw him as the benign head of Security (meaning he was the head of city government, more or less) and even acted as a benign mentor to the heroes; even some of them started to doubt that his intentions where anything but just until his true plan was revealed at the Season Finale. (Even so, Goodwin could technically be called a Well-Intentioned Extremist, albeit in the most extreme sense of the term.)

Mr. Heartland from Yu Gi Oh Zexal. Technically only The Dragon to the actual villain, he presents a benevolent, generous and friendly image while serving as the mayor of Heartland, causing nobody to suspect his true motives.

First off, Giovanni: to the public, he's the gym leader of Viridian City, but when nobody looks he's The Don of Team Rocket. This didn't factor too much in the plot, as Ash and his friends (including another gym leader) ended up accidentally exposing him well before they met each other in person, but it apparently worked, and fans who didn't play the original games were surely surprised of seeing the mysterious Boss of Team Rocket as a gym leader.

In a more traditional example, Cyrus appeared multiple times as a legitimate businessman before being revealed as the Big Bad of the Diamond & Pearl series.

Ainz wants to be this to avoid antagonizing any fellow Yggdrasil players who may have also ended up in the New World as well as anyone else who might be powerful enough to actually defeat him. He has succeeded in this regard with Carne Village, who revere him as their savior and benefactor for very good reasons: he saved them from being massacred by the Sunlight Scripture, he provided Enri with the Horns of the Goblin General that summoned very helpful goblin soldiers, and he also provided them golems to help with construction. He is also this in his "Momon" adventurer guise, having duped just about everyone in the New World into believing he is humanity's greatest champion.

Princess Reneer the "Golden Princess" is beloved by the Kingdom for being a kind and gentle monarch who pushes for reforms such as abolishing the slave trade. She's actually a very disturbed and intelligent Broken Bird due to growing up feared and hated by everyone around her who thought she was too smart for her own good. She is in truth a psychopath who doesn't really care about anyone else but Climb, the first person to see her as a human. Her idea of "love" is to chain up Climb and use him as her Sex Slave. It's telling that Demiurge of all people considers her to be the only person of interest in the Kingdom.

In Fairy Tail, the mysterious Emperor Spriggan is feared in Ishgar as the ruthless man of war who conquered an entire continent and merged its 700+ magic guilds into a superpower. In the Albareth Empire itself, he is beloved by his subjects and touted as a Reasonable Authority Figure who keeps his more Hot-Blooded subordinates in line. And most of them have no idea that Spriggan is actually Black Mage Zeref using an alias or that he thinks of them as game pieces (which is why his Curse doesn't activate around them).

Dragon Ball Super: It's revealed that Frost is a space pirate like Freeza, but Frost "saves" the planets he had enslaved to get good publicity in his universe. And nobody saw through him until Jaco sees him cheating during his fights with Goku and Piccolo. Beerus also revealed that Freeza did the same thing, but he wasn't very known for that.

While we're at it, the animated version of Selina Kyle is an outspoken animal rights activist, and when she was found not guilty at her trial, the assembled press and citizenry cheered her.

The Ghost Rider villain Deathwatch, as his alter ego Stephan Lords, was a benevolent and generous businessman. He blamed Ghost Rider for the destruction of a homeless shelter that he built underneath one of his office buildings and the deaths of the people inside it—when Deathwatch himself had been planning to use them as a food source to fuel his hunger for the pain of others.

In their first run-in with Brother Blood, the villain manipulated the Teen Titans into attacking church members in full view of TV cameras. He then played it off as a terrorist attack by costumed vigilantes, and staged his own fake death to put the blame on the Titans. (His priestesses explained that he would rise from the dead, as he had done several times before.) The ploy went a long way to legitimize the Church of Blood within America, and made it difficult for the Teen Titans to act against him. Considering that his name is Brother Blood, he has a Satanic wardrobe, and his church is decorated to look like a cross between Hell and Transylvania, how anyone would not see that this is clearly a mustache-twirling villain of the first order is anyone's guess.

Because he's really good at the whole "charismatic cult leader" thing. Even Dick Grayson himself joined the Church of Blood at one point!

The Penguin of DC Comics, as mayor of Gotham City (in the comic series that spun-off from Batman: The Animated Series), has been known to crack down on "vigilantism" (read: Batman). Also sometimes depicts himself as a "reformed legitimate businessman" while actually a crime boss attempting to take over half of Gotham, though nowadays he seems to truly be reformed (it won't last, it never does).

Lex got himself elected president and proceeded to cause problems for the Justice League. Well before that, he was a classic Teflon-coated Corrupt Corporate Executive, on which absolutely nothing illegal could ever be pinned, no matter how involved he was.

In Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl, Lex Luthor is a murderous, megalomaniac, heartless, xenophobic Manipulative Bastard. And yet he is widely regarded him as a selfless and brilliant philanthropist, Supergirl thinks he is a very good man, and the Justice Society are proud of calling him their friend and benefactor. When the truth comes out, Supergirl fears that no one would believe her due to the power of his reputation.

Senator and later President Callahan, the nemesis of Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan, who has the habit of killing people close to him for sympathy ratings whenever one of his misdeeds becomes public.

Doctor Doom wavers between this and 0% Approval Rating within Latveria. At least the citizens prefer him to any other ruler they've had, and even most members of the super-hero community will admit he's better than the alternative. As head of state, he enjoys diplomatic immunity during his official visits to the States. On his "unofficial" visits, however...

Ozymandias from Watchmen. He is a public hero and has his own product line, including action figures.

Around the time of Civil War, the Thunderbolts were ReTooled from villains in disguise Becoming the Mask into a Boxed Crook team led by "ex-" Spider-Man nemesis Norman Osborn, aka the Green Goblin. They quickly gained public support for hunting down rogue heroes that wouldn't register with the government. In Secret Invasion and throughout the Dark Reign period, he got promoted to the head of all government superheroes. A large part of the reason he got away with this is because he positioned himself in the media as The Atoner, and he also pointed out that he wasn't the only Green Goblin. He eventually lost his position when he had a major breakdown caught on camera, showing that he hadn't been able to put the Goblin that far behind him.

The Spacemen in Untold Tales of Spider-Man are beloved astronaut heroes...to hear them tell it, at least. The fact of the matter is that they're ruthless criminals, but their publicity is so good, that J. Jonah Jameson likes them, and he normally hates superheroes. The fact that the Spacemen are allegedly astronauts like JJJ's son, who he considers a real hero, is probably a factor.

Edwin Alva from Milestone Comics is the leader of an international criminal organization, but is viewed by the public as a wealthy and influential philanthropist.

Harmony Kendall, who and other vampires like her in Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight had this briefly after she got her own reality show, Harmony Bites. Capitalizing on the fact that vampires don't have to kill their victims, and people who are partially drained tend to get a rush out of it, they portray themselves sympathetically while making the Slayers look like genocidal nuts who commit Van Helsing Hate Crimes. But didn't last, seeing as Harmony pretty much gave herself away on Stephen Colbert's show, candidly suggesting that she was evil and might kill Barbera Walters and take her place on The View. Not only did Colbert think she was serious, he pointed out the implausibility of a vampire wanting to bring about the end of magic. (Twilight's master plan. Harmony's show was cancelled, but the fad went on for a little while longer. (She appeared on Dancing with the Stars, but lost, and later on Britain's Got Talent.)

The Riddler of Gotham fame has ascended to the high ranks of Gotham society because of his cunning manipulation of the media, and savored the role as Gotham's new "darling detective". Despite his numerous counts of larceny, complete disregard for human life, and the occasional murders of past days, his well-trained media circuits embrace him for his Sherlock Holmes-like method of deduction and flamboyant sense of personal theatrics. Outwitting the Gotham populace had never been so easy.

Cobra from G.I. Joe. In the Marvel series, they got their own country via diplomacy. In the IDW series, they got a rare burst of good publicity by handing out emergency supplies. They killed the Guardsmen who had them, and Cobra did cause the emergency in the first place...

A major theme in Sin City is that nearly all of the main villains are public figures that are beloved by the media and citizens. This is mostly seen in the Roark family, a family of crimebosses that hold religious and political offices and have had a tight grip over the city for over a century now.

Recently in the Sonic the Hedgehog comics, this status was bestowed on long-time villain Ixis Naugus. Due to a combination of the public's mistrust of NICOLE following her previous brainwashing by the Iron Queen (fueled by Naugus' own Hate Plague magic) and Naugus' own actions to defend New Mobotropolis from both Eggman and the Battle Bird Armada, his support amongst the citizens reaches the point that they gladly appoint him their king.

This ended up coming back at him when New Mobotropolis was rescued by NICOLE and Team Freedom (which was comprised of former council member Rotor, Actual Pacifist Cream and Cheese, Gentle Giant Big the Cat and reformed Badniks Heavy and Bomb), making Naugus look like a fool and allowing Rotor's replacement, Isabella Mongoose (that's Mina's mom), to demand NICOLE's return and sending him on a Villainous Breakdown.

The Reach, the aliens who created the scarab that empowers Blue Beetle, present themselves as benevolent visitors while subverting the populace from within with their Scarab Infiltrators. They do this because, despite their advanced technology, they lack the manpower needed to wage full-scale war with any planet that is worth their interest.

The Transformers: Monstrosity has the Decepticons as an Aversion. Its prequel gives them the sympathetic public, as they portray themselves as heroes and freedom fighters against an oppressive government. They are not trusted by all the public though, and people rally against them when it becomes clear that they aren't better than the government. Monstrosity has Scorponok blow up an Oil Refinery, which puts a hole in the planet and kills thousands, after that, the Decepticons lose all sympathy and the masses start evacuating.

Starscream in the IDW comics succeeds in this trope during The Transformers: Robots in Disguise, successfully conning both the Autobots and Decepticons and turning the far larger neutral population to his side, effectively making him the democratically elected ruler. The comics go on to show how difficult it is to get this trope down. All of his actions are being reported on by the media, and even slight outbursts of anger can end with him getting in trouble, numerous citizens either in his old faction, the Autobots, and even the Neutrals don't trust him, and he's always under scrutiny. During The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye he racks up a considerable amount of goodwill in his speeches and appearances at Megatron's Trial. He manages to get his public opinion up, the only problem is his actions have also lead to the Autobots getting recognition and the publicity bringing them almost up to his level. He can sway a crowd, but he has to constantly be on the move to keep the goodwill coming.

TransGene in Astro City story "Pastoral". They not only are acquitted of all charges after Roustabout accused them of kidnapping him and others and subjecting them to experiments (of which only he escaped with his life), they get Roustabout convicted of breaking and entering.

The Pony POV Series: in the Epilogue timeline, Discord is this... in Sky Ocean, anyway. While the rest of the world knows what an Evil Overlord Discord is, the Sea Ponies have been fed such a twisted version of history that they view him as a benevolent ruler who saved them from the "evil" Princesses (who are also blamed for the genocide he caused). Played with, as while this was originally the case, Discord's no longer evil and only being forced to act like it by the true Big Bad Nightmare Eclipse.

In Families, Olive Branch and his anti-Celestia propaganda group enjoy this status (in Canterlot, at least; they're not too popular in Ponyville). It doesn't help that he's spreading this propaganda right after a full-out invasion that Celestia, the royal guard, and even the Element Bearers failed to stop.

Death Note Equestria: Twilight/Kira briefly enjoys this in Equestria, before Fluttershy/Second Kira's less-justifiable murders ruin her image. Though according to Discord, she's still universally popular among the griffins.

The second season of Children of Time has none other than Professor Moriarty (or, at least, a clone), going by the name Richard Brooke. This forms the plot of the fourth episode, as the Holmeses must prove that the so-called philanthropist is actually a criminal mastermind.

Bonnie Gleeful in Gravity Falls Rule 63. She's the sweetest person in all of Gravity Falls, always smiling and speaking in a polite tone all the time. Not even Dana suspects she's a crazy mastermind who murders anyone who gets in her way.

Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race has Bass, who had a major publicity boost from the company that made him. However, this is unraveled when he fights mega Man one on one and the public learns who really created him.

General Mandible from the DreamWorks film Antz falls into this perfectly. He sends all of the troops who are more loyal to the queen than to him off to battle the termites, an enemy he knows can't be beaten. People cheer him for it as they leave.

Miles Axlerod from Cars 2, but that was before his identity went public.

Cat R. Waul, Big Bad of An American Tail Fievel Goes West is this, in order to lull the mice into a false sense of security and thus easier to catch and eat. As he explains to his mooks;

"We are nice to the mice because it is intelligent to do so. If we talk sweetly, they will come in droves. If we hiss, they will run, and we will have to chase after them, an unwanted expenditure of calories."

Prince Hans from Frozen is the living embodiment of this trope. He even manages to completely fool the audience into thinking he is sweet and considerate right up until The Reveal.

Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. He's handsome, muscular, an excellent hunter, beloved by everyone in town, and probably the best thing to happen to Belle's village. The problem? He's vain, self-absorbed, interested in Belle because of her beauty, rude, scheming, and crazy enough to try killing the Beast in the end. Yet, everyone is loyal to him and doesn't question his character whatsoever.

Simon Skinner in Hot Fuzz. In the eyes of almost everyone in Sandford, he can't be evil, because he's a pillar of the community and he runs the local supermarket. Partially subverted when Angel finally publicly accuses him of several murders, only to be proved wrong by a flawless alibi. Which is not a fake.

That said, ALL the Sandford "pillars" turn out to be involved in the murders, including Skinner, although his alibi was real and he wasn't the one who dirtied his hands.

Penguin: Odd as it may seem, Max, you and I have something in common: We're both perceived as monsters. But, somehow, you're a well-respected monster, and I am, to date, not. Shreck: Frankly, I feel that's a bum rap.

In Dudley Do-Right, Alfred Molina's character lampshades this when invading the village of the Kumquats. A mook informs him they've taken the village as he storms through a gaggle of reporters in the style of Patton. Molina, as Whiplash, orders the mook to "Torch the place, burn everything." As the mook rushes off, Molina stops him and says "Wait, that's bad publicity. Have the photographers take pictures of the boys straightening up the place." As the mook rushes off this time Molina breaks the fourth wall by telling the camera to learn from history or repeat it.

Repo! The Genetic Opera has the Largo family, who are mostly known for curing the organ failure epidemic and hosting the titular Genetic Opera, a very popular televised event—and who tend to send the Repo Men out after people who bad mouth them anyway.

And how convenient was it that Gene Co suddenly showed up to cure all these people dying of mysterious organ failures? Can anyone prove they didn't cause the epidemic?

Hank Quinlan from Touch of Evil, who's become a very well-respected policeman through careful evidence tampering. In the end, it even turns out that the person he was trying to frame in the film was guilty, giving him the epitaph, "He was a great detective, but a lousy cop."

James Bond gets this all the time, to the point where M has pre-emptively sent Bond to investigate some supposedly well-known industrialist/multimillionaire/what have you.

Dominic Greene in Quantum of Solace, who's an environmental philanthropist in public, but a greedy schemer in private. Director Mark Forster deliberately avoided make-up or any overt villain characteristics, to symbolise the hidden "evils in society".

The Man: Let me tell you something about Him. He is the biggest underachiever of all time. He just has a good publicist, that's all. Something good happens, "It's His will." Something bad happens, "He moves in mysterious ways."

However, given that said character is the villain, none other than Satan, this should be taken with a whole shaker of salt.

Frank White of King of New York is a drug lord who sets up multi-million-dollar heroin deals and guns down rival gangsters in cold blood by day, and hobnobs with celebrities and organizes gala fundraisers for hospitals by night.

Billy The Kid in Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. Although it's the kind of movie where there's no real heroes or villains, Billy is largely presented as a sociopathic murderer and bandit who is nevertheless widely admired by the populace as a folk hero and rebel outlaw.

In both their appearances in the Godzilla series, the Xilians begin their invasions by promising good will. First, they want to offer humanity a miracle cure in exchange for borrowing Godzilla and Rodan to beat back King Ghidorah. Turns out they were controlling King Ghidorah and want to capture Earth for its water. The second time, they capture the rampaging monsters that are destroying Earth and offer to help save Earth from a rogue planet in route to destroy it. Turns out they were controlling the monsters to begin with and said planet isn't the threat it seems to be (still is a threat, just not of the world ending version).

In Duel, the murderous trucker helps a bus full of kids and exchanges a friendly toot with passing trains. Everyone except the protagonist has every reason to believe he's just a friendly ordinary truck driver.

Mike Morris in The Ides of March. Decorated war hero, popular Pennsylvania governor, and the favorite for the Democratic Presidential ticket. And unfaithful husband who has an affair with a much-younger intern, leading to her to become pregnant with his child and be Driven to Suicide.

Augustus Steranko in If Looks Could Kill. Despite the fact his personal emblem is a scary-looking scorpion and he has a private army of machine gun toting goons for no reason he could possibly justify and generally acts like a jerk to people in public, Steranko has somehow convinced British Intelligence that he is "an ally and a friend."

Zigzagged in Casino; Sam Rothstein, a bookie associated with the Mafia is assigned to Las Vegas where he obtains entrepreneurial reputation, awards and social recognition. After a while things go sour and he gets surrounded by great media controversy regarding his license problems and his connection with a well-known mobster. As a reaction, Sam starts his own talk-show to make a stand and defend himself and his image. He gets called on it by his mob associates as his flamboyant crusade draws unwanted attention.

In absentia, Two-Face is hailed as Gotham's greatest public servant in The Dark Knight Rises. Also Bane, who turned Gotham over from the rich and gave it back to the people.

Interestingly, despite being a maniacal world-conqueror, Cobra Commander is apparently well-liked by his subordinates. When he returns to his headquarters after being broken out of super-high-security prison, several workers say things like "It's good to have you back, Boss!"

In New Jack City, Nino Brown tries to gain the people's support by handing out free meals to the poor and money to the children. The cops Scotty and Peretti openly call his Robin Hood act out as crap, as does an old man whose grandson is among those children. At the same time, Nino has forced entire families out of their homes to build his drug factory and is preying on the poor to sell his drugs.

Ken Castle from Gamer has managed to get almost everyone to overlook the fact that they're playing deathmatches and Second Life with real people and is said to have exceeded Bill Gates' wealth. He did this by pulling the entire US Prison system back from the verge of bankruptcy, revitalizing the economy and everybody involved, convict or otherwise, signed up "voluntarily".

In Scanners II: The New Order, corrupt police officer Commander Forrester tries to use the press to get himself in power and presents himself as an upstanding citizen who wants to end the intensifying crime wave in the cities. They eat into his hand until his real plan to establish order by creating a police state is finally revealed.

In the Saw franchise, Lieutenant Mark Hoffman is a decorated and highly respected homicide detective with over 20 years experience and numerous promotions under his belt. Of course he's also a violent and brutal Corrupt Cop who is secretly an accomplice (and eventual successor) to the infamous 'Jigsaw Killer'.

Eric Sacks from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), appears to be a clean-cut businessman who publicly opposes the Foot Clan, but in reality, he's not only one of their high-ranking members, but Shredder's own adopted son.

Jack Ryan: I will fucking destroy you! I will make it my mission in life.

In Er Ist Wieder Da, Adolf Hitler himself comes back to life in the modern world, and manages to become a media sensation despite not hiding in the slightest that he is literally Hitler. At one point he is caught on tape literally shooting a dog but manages to play it off by donating money to animal welfare causes.

Literature

Many depictions of the anti-Christ put him in this category. For instance, the incredibly charismatic (or so we're told) Nicolae Carpathia of the Left Behind series.

By definition, the Anti-Christ is supposed to be seen as the greatest force for good since Jesus himself (but isn't), not as the antithesis of Christ (which he is).

The whole modern concept of the Anti-Christ is a kind of Memetic Mutation. While Paul does speak of the coming of "the man of lawlessness" who will be a charismatic leader before Christ's return, the name "Antichrist" is separate and just means somebody who claims to be the Messiah, but who isn't Jesus. ("Even now many antichrists have come." — 1 John 2:18) The word Antichrist appears nowhere in the Revelation to John, which the Left Behind series is supposed to be based on.

Andy, the grown up Rosemary's Baby in the sequel, Son of Rosemary is a perfect example of this. He grew up to be the leader of an international peace-keeping organization.

Tywin Lannister from A Song of Ice and Fire. While ruthless in his war against the Starks and being an all-around jerk, he is known to be a wise ruler who led Westeros into many years of prosperity as the Hand of the King. It helps that this reputation appears to be entirely accurate. He's a terrible father and a vicious enemy, but he is a good ruler. Though that was only when he was The Good Chancellor to the Mad King, his atrocities in his later years, his sacking of King's Landing, the mass murders conducted on his orders by Gregor Clegane have made him disliked as well. Jaime, his son, notes on his father's funeral that aside from some royal guests who are toadying the Lannisters, there are very few mourners because most Kingslanders remember him for his sack and do not like him at all:

Joffrey got this as well. As a handsome boy-king, many people were willing to blame Lord Varys and the dwarf Tyrion for the problems of the kingdom, believing they'd led him astray. In actuality, Joffrey wanted to shoot peasants with his crossbow, while the other two are doing their best to keep order. This impression seemed to mostly wear off as the situation worsened and rumors about Joffrey's origins spread.

Most characters seem to have the same feelings regarding Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish, respecting his intelligence, laughing at his jokes, thinking about him with fondness, and generally viewing him as about as threatening as a cute, little songbird. Few have seen him for what he really is (and they are the ones with even worse PR such as Tyrion and Varys) and fewer know that he is responsible for plunging Westeros into a bloody civil war in the first place.

Euron Greyjoy is an interesting case of playing with this trope: he's both hated by his family and feared by the general populace of the Ironmen for his sinister reputation and cruelty, while also being respected as a Shrouded in Myth badass and living legend. When Euron returns from exile, he surprises a lot of characters by becoming King of the Ironmen fairly rather than simply slaughtering his rivals, and then gives the Ironmen fresh and unexpected conquests, which is all he needs to get good publicity in a Testosterone PoisoningBlood Knight culture like that of the Ironmen.

Renly Baratheon is one of the most charismatic and powerful nobleman in the Seven Kingdoms, ruling the Stormlands, however is in private a Sleazy Politician and Corrupt Bureaucrat, and despite being Master of Laws shows little concern for the law. When his brother King Robert dies he plots to seize power even before Robert is cold, and then marries into the powerful Tyrell family to usurp the crown, before he hears the truth of Joffrey's illegitimacy. This sets him up as a foil to the middle Baratheon brother Stannis, who claims the throne out of a sense of duty, as under Westerosi law Robert having no legitimate children makes Stannis his heir, however his strong principles and lack of social skills make him disliked by most of the nobility. Renly, meanwhile, tries claiming the throne largely out of vanity and greed, refusing Stannis' offer to be their heir until Stannis has a son, remain in rule of the Stormlands, and on the Small Council. Renly plans to kill Stannis the next day in battle, citing his larger army as justifying him having a better claim then Stannis. However, Melisandre, a witch who believes Stannis her Messiah, assassinates Renly with blood magic, yet after his death Renly goes through a Historical Hero Upgrade, as it is believed his ghost helped defeat Stannis' army and save King's Landing at the Battle of the Blackwater, the new Tyrell-backed regime overlooking the fact he was clearly a traitor. Meanwhile, Brienne of Tarth, who was in love with Renly, continues to look on him in a favorable light.

The Masters in The Tripods were this trope. They depicted themselves as saving humans from war and violence.

The Queen in the short story "A Woman's Work" is the head of an aggressive empire that ruthlessly conquers and spreads. She orders people killed with a mere gesture (including a princess who refused to marry her son), kills off heroes trying to stop her, and is quite willing to have her son be a target for assassination instead of her. However, since she provides universal education and health care, a sound economy, a healthy population, and employment training, and doles out praise and rewards when it's earned, her people and army absolutely love her.

Sir Charles Latrom, aka Lord Boreal, of The Subtle Knife. It takes Lyra a while to realize the implications of his good publicity when she tries to get back her Black Box that he stole: that he is a well-connected pillar of the community while she is a dimension-hopping child who can't actually prove to the authorities that she exists in this particular world, let alone that the alethiometer belongs to her.

From the 2nd Sapphire Rose trilogy, David Eddings's The Tamuli. Zalasta is the cause of everything wrong, despite being the one to recommend that Sparhawk be called in. Which bites him in the ass later.

Quite a few former Death Eaters were revealed to have gained good reputations and work in the Ministry. This was one of the reasons Fudge refused to believe Harry when he was naming followers who returned to Voldemort.

Dolores Umbridge, who, as a distinguished and high-ranking Ministry official, is able to get most people to overlook her child abuse and Fantastic Racism.

Gilderoy Lockhart, although he only barely qualifies as a villain.

Voldemort himself as a student. Only Dumbledore recognized that one of the darkest wizards of all time was right under their noses.

It is also implied that he was this during the First Wizarding War to many, that is, until he showed his true colors.

In Dostoyevsky's Demons, both Stavrogin and Petr Stepanovic are highly regarded by the whole town, with the exception of a handful of characters who are either despised by everybody (Satov, Stepan Trofimovic) or too insane/lunatic to care (Kirillov). Petr Stepanovic actually pulls this off on two levels, as he is admired both in the high society he frequents and in his secret terrorist group.

In Animorphs, the Yeerks can take control of any human. As a result, they choose highly respected members of the community, such as Jake's universally loved brother and the school principal. Their front organization for recruiting new voluntary hosts, the Sharing, pretends to be a Boy Scout/Girl Scout kind of thing that anyone can join. All-American nuclear families, outcasts, rejects...

Marisi, in the Magic: The Gathering novel Alara Unbroken. He is credited by the Wild Nacatl with founding their society, but he turned them and the Cloud Nacatl against each other as part of Nicol Bolas's plan to create chaos on Alara.

In the Wild Cards books, Puppetman is a sadist who mind-controls people and uses them to torture and kill others for his own pleasure. He's also a well-respected candidate for President of the United States.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, everyone who isn't a thought-criminal worships Big Brother, though he is never seen except on propaganda posters and telescreens.

This was the entire plot of Harlan Ellison's story "The Deathbird", in which God is the villain with good publicity and Satan is the hero with bad publicity.

This trope underpins the plot of The Wire in the Blood by Val McDermid; Jacko Vance is a well-respected TV personality and former Olympic athlete who lost an arm rescuing people from a motorway pile-up. This makes it slightly difficult for DI Jordan and her team to investigate him when they realise that he's been kidnapping and torturing young girls for years.

In Layer Cake, Edward Ryder (Edward Temple in the film) is a guy known to the public as having risen from his youth as a delinquent into a respected, wealthy businessman and patron of the arts, who has married into the aristocracy. In reality, he is a London Gangster, and after his aristocratic wife turned out to be a drug addict and nymphomaniac, it's heavily implied he had her murdered - the public thinks she ran off with a lover.

Professor Moriarty in any of the myriad Sherlock Holmes stories is a good example. He is a well-respected professor who to, all intents and purposes, seems like a humble, soft-spoken guy. Only Holmes knows that Moriarty is a crime lord, but he can't prove it. (And when Sherlock Holmes can't prove something, you know the bad guy is very good at what he does.)

Petaybee: The entire Intergal corporation, which makes sense because it controls all of the media that reaches Petaybee.

Duke Roger in the Song of the Lioness books by Tamora Pierce (or in the first 2, anyway). Subversion in that it's only the people at court who believe he's a good guy, except for the heroine and another character. People outside the court who are aware of him don't trust him. (The people at court are most of the main characters.) It turns out that his good publicity is a mix of charisma and magical tricks - not quite full-on brainwashing, but similar.

In Un Lun Dun, there are two; Brokkenbroll in the abcity and Minister Rawley in the real world.

Subverted in Malevil. Fulbert is a Sinister Minister with a flock, but doesn't have the zealots and fanatics one would expect an evil priest to command. He had their loyalty once and convinced them to accept his rule and entrusted all the food and weapons to his care. Since then, he's been a lazy yet cruel tyrant. They would rebel against him, but have no force to do so, and besieging his fortified manor would end with him starving them out.

In the first Warrior Cats series, Tigerclaw. He's a highly respected senior warrior, and, by the end of the first book, becomes deputy (second-in-command) of the Clan (and therefore next in line as leader). However, he murdered a previous deputy in order to try and claim the position, which only the young hero Fireheart and his two best friends know. Tigerclaw is such a respected cat in the Clan that nobody suspects him of treachery - even the leader rejected the idea when Fireheart told her his suspicions. Being deputy, Tigerclaw can assign Fireheart punishments in order to keep an eye on him, or order him to perform a life-threatening task, or suggest to the leader that Fireheart should be driven out of the Clan.

Sisterhood Series by Fern Michaels: Okay, let's see. The three rapists in Weekend Warriors, who have apparently raped "lots and lots and lots" of women, and almost no one suspects a thing! Senator Webster in Payback, who sure knows how to use the Public Relations machine. Hollywood actor Michael Lyons in Free Fall, who is adored by the public, but is a sexual deviant in private. Lawyer Baron Bell in Deadly Deals, who seems to be such a lovable guy around kids, but actually sells babies! Good thing the Vigilantes have ways to take down such villains!

The Eric Frank Russell short story "Displaced Person" implies that God Himself may be an example of this trope.

The Four Horsemen of The Witch Watch are this and use it to good advantage.

Godfrey Ablewhite in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone is a handsome philanthropist and Romantic False Lead who's absolutely adored by charities and female characters everywhere. Then he turns out to be a lying womanizer who's been embezzling from aforementioned charities, and a henchman of the mysterious main villain of the tale.

Prince Regal in Robin Hobbs's Farseer Trilogy is adored by the people. The people who've never met him, at least.

Within Ruin: Virgil inverts this trope. He is intentionally a ruthless dictator in order to cultivate more dissent so that as many people will die as possible. He wants the bad PR.

Trapped on Draconica: Pre-series Kazebar was Draconica's number 1 humanitarian. To reward his good work Dronor granted his son the power to travel between worlds, believing that if any human deserved this honor it would be Kazebar's family line. Whether he was tempted by this power or if he was Evil All Along is not made clear.

Flashman is an example of this, albeit milder than many examples. He's a coward, a bully, a liar and a serial adulterer among many other things, yet he's viewed by the British public as a national hero for his brave exploits (which in reality mostly consisted of dumb luck, taking credit for someone else's work or having been coerced. However, the downside is that the need to maintain this facade often results in his being pushed into even more dangerous and terrifying adventures.

Seven Days in May. General James Mattoon Scott, the most popular, charismatic general in the United States. Oh, he just happens to be plotting to take over the country in a Military Coup, at the end of the week.

Trenton Aloysius Kalamack, in "Literature/The Hollows", by Kim Harrison. A well-respected politician, he's described as "Cincinnati's Most Eligible Bachelor". Turns out, he deals in biodrugs, which are outlawed in the setting, as well a being murderer. His well respected status makes him impossible to bring to justice and the protagonist's attempts to do so tend to get her in a lot of trouble. Eventually, he becomes less of this and more Affably Evil.

The reactionary right-wing Catholic order Umbra Domini and it's photogenic media-savvy leader Father Silvio della Torre in The Genesis Code.

The Robber Baron in Devils Cape is this. While people know he runs organized crime in Devil's Cape, they seem to view him more as a celebrity than a frightening criminal.

To Kill a Mockingbird: Subverted with Bob Ewell. All of Maycomb knows he is a stupid, selfish, loutish, and untrustworthy hick. The only reason he gets away with beating his daughter along with possible Parental Incest was because the man he accused was black, and the trial only reveals to the town the depths of his cruelty, humiliating him and driving him to various acts of vengeance.

In Jeramey Kraatz's The Cloak Society trilogy, the Cloak Society poses as heroes in a desperate time when people are anxious to believe in them. It works.

Amy Dunne in Gone Girl. She spent a good deal of time conversing with the neighbors and making herself seem as likable as possible leading up to her staged disappearance. There's also the fact that her parents based a series of children's books off of her childhood - Ironically, this is what led to her Sanity Slippage in the first place.

President Snow in The Hunger Games, at least with the citizens of the Capitol. That goes away by Book 3.

Coin is presented as the rebel leader fighting for justice. But the truth about her is much harsher than that.

One of the central plot points of The House of Night series. Neferet is able to hide her desire to kill all humans for quite a long time, maintaining a respectable appearance.

Count Falk in The Dinosaur Lords maintains an image of a nice, if misguided former rebel with a touching story of Heel–Face Turn and personality crafted to make many young and hot-headed knights follow him. His plan is to manipulate the Empire to do his bidding.

In Er Ist Wieder Da, Adolf Hitler himself comes back to life in the modern world, and manages to become a media sensation despite not hiding in the slightest that he is literally Hitler.

Theo Galavan in Season 2 secretly staged a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum just so he could thwart the released criminals to gain public reputation. Then he had Penguin assassinate numerous political candidates while also staging a 'failed' assassination on Theo, "convincing" him to run for mayor of Gotham at the urge of his ever-more-adoring fans.

Penguin becomes this in Season 3. Despite his well known criminal reputation, he gains vast public support after calling out the GCPD for their gross incompetence in handling the escaped super villains from Indian Hill, and rallying the populace behind him to handle it the old fashioned way. Afterwards, he's popular enough to run for mayor.

Gus Fring on. On the surface, he is a respectable businessman, and a major supporter of local law enforcement agencies. In reality, he has no qualms with murder and other heinous acts just to keep his meth empire going.

On Homicide: Life on the Street, the only recurring villain was Luther Mahoney, a college-educated drug kingpin whose front was a self-proclaimed "community activist" who ran a number of community centers and charities in the slums. No matter what the detectives tried to pin on him, he always walked away unscathed and with his reputation intact, causing one detective to remark that he would likely someday be elected Mayor. Eventually, one of the detectives killed him in a questionable shooting, leading to many, many more problems than were solved.

In Hannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter actively maintains a reputation as a brilliant and cultured psychiatrist with close friendships with Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford. He even enhances his seeming innocence by framing others for his crimes, such as Will and Chilton. This ends after Season 2, when the facade comes crumbling down.

Wolfram and Hart: they are their crack legal team. While many of their clients are rich or powerful, the firm is also known to work some cases pro bono, especially when it has an ulterior interest in the client. Lilah even gave the keynote speech at a public school just to get close to a young telekinetic. Holland's division sponsored a high-profile charity event with the intention of stealing upwards of 95% of the funds raised.

Jasmine takes this trope to the logical extreme with good publicity through mass brainwashing.

Danielle Atron in The Secret World of Alex Mack. She is the CEO of Paradise Valley Chemical Plant, who is the biggest sponsor for most events in the series as well as the main employer of most the town. Little do they know, though, that she is extremely shady and willing to kill an innocent kid just because they were doused with an experimental (and illegal) chemical substance.

The Alliance is a very good example of this. Most of them think they are being no worse then Kipling-style Imperialists who conquer the unwilling but also build hospitals, ship medicine to the Rim, and try to establish Rule of Law. Which comes in hard for River and Simon who don't just face exile but the respect with which well-engineered hypocrisy can cover injustice. And it comes especially hard for the inhabitants of places like Miranda...

The Earth government of Babylon 5 in the second through fourth seasons stays in power largely by controlling all the media and spinning everything in their favour. It engages in practially every single Trope in the description, including capturing Sheridan and attempting an Engineered Public Confession as a major story arc. Tellingly, during a meeting with a Earth Force Major who reports martial law has been declared and troops are deployed in all Earth's major cities, he notes that martial law has been (officially) met with widespread public approval! And things have never been more calm. Sheridan replies, "Yeah, but it's the peace of the gun". Sheridan then proceeds to use his own guns quite effectively.

The Vorlons have manipulated the younger races into perceiving them as angels (and their enemies as demons), and up until the fourth season, the protagonists - especially the Minbari - regard them as the Big Good. In truth, they are not nearly so benevolent.

In the original 1966 Batman series, one of the bad guys is pointing a gun at a local citizen, so Batman busts in to arrest him. It turns out that it was a lighter in the shape of a gun, and he was showing it off to the guy. This gives the bad guy the ability to sue Batman for false arrest.

That was actually the Riddler, and while it was true, it didn't exactly improve the villain's publicity. (The charges against Batman were dismissed after his real crime left his whereabouts uncertain, and he never showed up in court to pursue the case.)

Davros, in Genesis of the Daleks. At least, before he arranged the Kaled Dome's destruction (and the extermination of his people) to avoid having to cover his tracks.

Davros also returns to this in his Sixth Doctor appearance in "Revelation of the Daleks," where he's credited for helping solve universal hunger. You know, until it was revealed his food was Made of people. Whoops.

The Daleks could count as a group of Villains With Good Publicity in "Victory of the Daleks". The Doctor knows what they really are, but they have even Winston Churchill convinced that they are nothing but loyal robots who will fight for England. And serve them tea.

The same thing is true in the Second Doctor-era story, "The Power of the Daleks." Everyone in the human colony is convinced that the Daleks are robots that are there to help them in any way possible. This belief is reinforced by the Daleks' seemingly endless mantra of "I. AM. YOUR. SER-VANT."

Rassilon, Founder of Time Lord Society was often portrayed as a benevolent figure by the Time Lords. In "The Five Doctors" he even helps defeat the villain and restore order. However in this story he is implied to be this trope, the Third Doctor says he put a stop to misuse of time travel while the Second Doctor says the official history portrayed him well but there were rumours he was a tyrant who was imprisoned in the Dark Tower by his fellow Time Lords. In "The End of Time" he has returned during the Time War to lead the Time Lords and has become an Omnicidal Maniac, willing to bring about the title threat to ensure the Time Lords Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence.

This had already been happening in the Expanded Universe, where it was implied he brought about the supposed death of his friend Omega to ensure he could rule Gallifrey. And in Big Finish Doctor Who he is the Big Bad of many of 8's stories and a massive Evilutionary Biologist. It is claimed he stole the power of regeneration from the Vampires and tried to exterminate them all even though they were a peaceful race that only fed on mindless animals they bred. Then to prevent any races developing which could threaten the Time Lords he made sure many races evolved in Time Lord form and trapped the Divergence in another Universe.

In the Sci-Fi Channel's Flash Gordon series, Ming of Mongo goes to great lengths to present himself to his subjects as "The Benevolent Father" (but can never quite live down his old nickname "Ming the Merciless").

He can grant a smuggler's sick daughter extra water rations while ordering his execution in the same breath.

Marvel Cinematic Universe:

In Daredevil, Wilson Fisk originally subverts this, trying to be a Villain with No Publicity: he goes to great lengths to stay out of the limelight, and uttering his name carelessly will cause him to order a hit on you and everyone you ever cared about as a message to others. Eventually, his new mistress Vanessa Marianna persuades him to make a public appearance as a philanthropist in order to get some good publicity in response to the Devil of Hell's Kitchen becoming a pain in his side.

Deconstructed in Luke Cage: Mariah Dillard (and Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes to a lesser extent) try to be this, but it takes a lot of effort on their parts to keep their criminal activities out of public consciousness. Except Mariah is very effectively ambushed by a TV reporter during a live interview asking about her ties to her cousin's crime ring (due to Luke's attack on her office at Crispus Attucks), and all Mariah can really do is end the interview immediately and have the reporter and her camera crew removed from the house. From there on, the entire second half of the season sees Mariah trying to regain the good publicity she's lost. Even after managing to get Luke ousted as Carl Lucas, it's pretty clear it will be a long uphill battle.

Sheriff Lucas Buck of American Gothic. Nowhere is this more obvious than in one episode where he is strolling down the hallway of the town hospital: on every side of him, men tip their hats and women hand him flowers, little old men and women thank him for the charity work that has enabled them to afford their medicines, children smile and wave, and so on. No one in Trinity could possibly believe good ol' boy Buck could have a mean bone in his body, let alone be Evil Incarnate. Gail finds herself working (unsuccessfully) against this mindset when investigating Buck and his connection to her parents' deaths; Dr. Crower is unable to convince anyone the sheriff is pure evil, hence making it easy to lock him up as crazy; and Caleb, who knows right off the bat that something isn't right about the fellow, ends up being taken in by his charisma and accepting him as his true father who's been wrongfully maligned and only wants to help raise him right.

Francis Urquhart from the House of Cards trilogy cheats, connives, blackmails, coerces, and murders his way to the post of prime minister of the UK. He effortlessly charms his friends and enemies into doing everything he wants as he stabs them in the back, and he enjoys overwhelming popular support. He ends up ruling longer than Margret Thatcher.

Frank Underwood, his American counterpart, is just as much of a political schemer, and just as willing to resort to murder to get what he wants. And he's still considered a personal friend of the (apparently genuinely non-corrupt) President, as well as being quite popular with the public.

The malevolent alien Visitors in V (1983) begin like this, gaining control of the world's governments by pretending to be Human Aliens who have come to share their great knowledge, thus facilitating their real plan to enslave and devour mankind.

The remake V (2009) has them heading down exactly the same path, at least as far as the first part is concerned. As for the second... Anna engages in a constant PR campaign which succeeds in getting the UN and even the Vatican on her side. She also uses the chaos caused by the Fifth Column and the Human Resistance to her advantage, gaining support for her people by making them look like the victims.

A downplayed example in Scream Queens (2015): Chanel is very popular amongst her 752 Instagram fans for giving them Halloween gifts for "Chanel-o-ween." This makes her look like a caring person and boosts her popularity, despite the fact that she often delivers stealth insults to her fans.

Parodied in the second season's Chanel-o-ween video. Chanel doesn't bother with the pretense of trying to be nice; she explicitly says that she's using her video to let her fans know how much she hates them. She sends them real maggots, pus and body parts she looted from the hospital she works at, along with extremely vicious insults. She even goes to someone's house to tell them that she loathes them. Yet after all this, her fans are shown with Tears of Joy and crying out over how much they love Chanel for what she's done.

Drake & Josh: Megan. It's just not funny anymore. An adult who did the things she did, including smuggling illegal merchandise, torturing (other) children, and using counterfeit money, would be in jail for years.

Senator Kinsey in Stargate SG-1. He's such a self-righteous Jerk Ass, you have to wonder how he manages to function in society without constantly being punched, much less get elected. Kinsey was later an Evil Vice President, but he got fired after the Personable President wised up to him being evil. Again, it's amazing how many people don't figure out he's evil two seconds after meeting him.

Over the course of the series, the heros visit multiple alternate realities in which Kinsey became President. None of them ended well.

Ba'al becomes this for an episode, when it's revealed that he's secretly on Earth and has become a CEO of a major corporation.

The Ori, at least to billions of followers. Then again, while they do have people who genuinely believe in the teachings of Origin, it's more than likely most are simply terrified of being burnt alive.

Stockwell from season 3 of Queer as Folk. He was chief constable and ran for mayor. The general masses loved him, especially since he promised to make Pittsburgh "family friendly" if he was elected. Never mind that in order to do so, he practically persecuted the gay population of the city. He put in place a nifty little cover up when one of the police officers he employed murdered a young gay prostitute.

Molly Hardy, in The Adventures of Shirley Holmes. Up to the very end, she's got everybody convinced that she's a model student. She was popular, Student President, and winner of several art and academic awards. Only Shirley and Bo see her sociopathic side, initially.

In order to avoid spoiling anything, suffice it to say Veronica Mars has several of these, although some turn out to be red herrings and not true villains at all.

Morgana of Merlin in Series 3 was one of these - despite her repeated attempts to murder Uther and take over Camelot, everyone remained blissfully unaware of her treachery - one episode ended with Morgana being praised for foiling her own plot.

In his Lois and Clark incarnation, Lex was a renowned philanthropist, a darling to the press (even Perry White wanted to sell him the Daily Planet), and a god to City Hall —This despite operating a monopoly on city services and gouging his customers. He also ran a crime syndicate on the side, ensuring that even the lowliest mugger answered to him.

Averted with Lionel Luthor in Smallville. He's so hated that Lex, learning from his mistakes, determines that love is a more powerful weapon than hate. In Season 10, Gordon Godfrey is one as well.

Alderman Gibbons in The Chicago Code is an obvious one of these, as he manipulates the public, and is able to come out smelling like a rose despite the crap he's involved in.

Clay Davis from The Wire is an excellent example of this Trope. In fact, his publicity is so good that he manages to get acquitted of fraud charges thanks to it - the evidence that he did the things the prosecution said he did is overwhelming, but his publicity is s good that none of the jurors can believe that he was anything worse than a Lovable Rogue.

Marcus van Sciver in Blade The Series is one of the most well-known figures in Detroit. He's a big patron of the arts and a major proponent of the cultural revival of the city. The fact that he only shows his face at night doesn't faze anyone in the least. He's also a vicious bloodsucker who kills on a whim and wants to bring down the vampire aristocracy. He's alsoBritish.

In the TV adaptation of the Raffles stories, Raffles explains that his pursuit of fame as a cricketer is motivated by a desire to be this. As he sees it, by making himself a public figure who is automatically linked in peoples' minds to one thing, he's guaranteed that no one could ever suspect him of being a professional thief. He also voices a theory, based on this premise, that Jack the Ripper was probably a well-known MP whose moral speeches were reported in all the papers along with his crimes.

An even better example is the RedQueen from its spin-off series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, who is generally liked by the population (though some are terrified of her), and listens to the complains of her subjects. Her popularity is probably helped by the fact that she was preceded by Cora, and that royalty in the OUAT universe tends not to be great in the first place.

Scandal: Fitz...enough of a good reputation to be President of the United States.

The Following: Roderick is the well-liked sheriff of the county where the cult sets up its main headquarters.

Arrow: Malcolm Merlyn is viewed as a humanitarian and philanthropist, but in actuality is the Big Bad of Season 1, with a plan to "save" the city by killing thousands.

Sebastian "Brother" Blood is an alderman who champions the lower classes and is popular enough to run for mayor with a good chance of winning. He's also a Dark Messiah cult leader who intends to create an army of Super Soldiers and wipe out the city's elite.

The Network, the absurdly powerful cabal of business interests, spies and politicians in Conspiracy ThrillerUtopia is this. When the protagonists unwittingly stumble upon the plot, they're either assassinated or forced into hiding after being framed of rape, child pornography and a school massacre.

Pennsatucky in Orange Is the New Black. She went to jail after shooting a nurse at an abortion clinic for "disrespecting her". However, people assumed that she did it as a pro-life statement and they raised money to get her a good lawyer, so she went along with it and pretended she did it as a pro-life statement and eventually believed it herself. While in prison, she gets fan mail from her supporters on a regular basis. Not that everyone supports what Pennsatucky did, but enough to still qualify for this trope.

Jiaying, the leader of the Inhumans, is viewed as a wise and benevolent ruler. However, she turns out to be a totally unhinged War Hawk who has no problem engaging in total war with SHIELD, even knowing it'll cause countless deaths on both sides.

Season 3 has Gideon Malick, a philanthropist and former member of the World Security Council who acts as the benefactor for the ATCU. He also turns out to be a member of HYDRA's old guard and leader of the faction dedicated to their true original purpose of worshipping and working to unleash an ancient Inhuman.

His Divine Shadow in Lexx is worshiped in the Light Universe as the guardian of Order who protects his subjects from the Dark Zone (the alternate universe). Only a scant fraction of the Light Universe's population recognize the Obviously Evil nature of His Shadow and his regime. And no one realizes that His Shadow is in truth the last Insect using humans to defeat themselves.

The page quote from Star Trek: The Next Generation refers to the actions of Retired Admiral Norah Satie, a respected member of Starfleet who quickly grows paranoid at the idea that there was a conspiracy on board the Enterprise. Picard is able to expose her by invoking her father, which pisses her right off. Worf, who had been more than willing to follow her, is quite discouraged by the fact that he did so, though Picard tells him the above as a means to reassure him, that it's easy to be swayed by a villain hiding under good intentions.

On The Exorcist, the Friars of Ascension are a Catholic charity organization whose members include many of Chicago's "pillars of society", such as the police superintendent and a businesswoman/philanthropist who is one of the main benefactors of Father Tomas' struggling church. However, they're all also closeted Satanists (several of whom may actually be possessed) who are plotting to assassinate the Pope during his visit to the city.

Act Yasukawa turned heel took over Wonder Ring Stardom's main Power Stable, Kimura Monster Gun from Kyoko Kimura herself, renaming it Oedo Tai, yet people kept chanting her name as if she was a baby face.

Jay Lethal, the cackling, loophole abusing, narcissistic, commissioner assaulting double champion of ROH was given the honor of throwing the first pitches at White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays games. He also did a video on ROH for What A Culture where he revealed he was one of the first wrestlers to be getting his own action figure(ensuring he will "Live Forever")

Desus, one of the signature characters of Exalted, is one of the most famous and well-liked of the First Age Solars, and has no real enemies. Even those who oppose his faction are convinced of his nobility and good intentions. As for his true character...Well, he repeatedly beat his wife, Lilith, until she miscarried, and then brainwashed her into believing that it was all her fault. And that's how he treats the woman he (in his own sick way) loves. You don't even want to know what he does to people he's not attached to...And let's not even think about what he does to people that he actually dislikes. Considering that Lilith was one of the toughest warriors that ever lived out of a race whose entire shtick is "enduring hardship", that hints at just how badly Desus was beating her.

Inverted in Genius: The Transgression. One of the benefits of having a high Karma Meter is that people naturally see you as a trustworthy authority figure and have a very hard time believing you're up to anything evil. That said;

Since obligaton measures how much of a connection a genius has with humanity, it's perfectly possibly for an evil genius to have high obligation by abusing this trope (an example NPC does so by keeping his hands clean). You don't have to be mad to be evil, after all.

There's a whole lot of these in Rifts, but the biggest one is probably Emperor Prosek. Within the Coalition States, he is considered to be incapable of doing any wrong. He gave a live televised speech announcing that he was plunging the nation into a series of unprovoked wars, including a Civil War against one of their own states, and he was cheered on for it. Outside his nation, he is regarded as a Jerk Ass or a Magnificent Bastard, but inside the Coalition States, he's unanimously regarded as the savior of Humanity.

Pizza Tycoon: The player can be one, if they hold a high reputation in both social and underworld standings. In fact, the game rewards the player for employing this trope, as public officials are more likely to do favors, and the underworld will be there to protect one from troubles.

Tatsuzou Sudou from Persona 2 Eternal Punishment is QUITE effective at hiding evidence of anything that might darken his good name, as evidenced by the hordes of Dirty Cops and The Triads and the Tongs he has on speed dial.

The Crey Corporation in City of Heroes is meant to represent this, but is a jarring stretch of Willing Suspension of Disbelief in the process. There are a TON of missions involving Crey conspiracies, several stories that show deep levels of corruption within the company, and hundreds of Crey operatives (wearing outfits with the distinctive Crey logo, nonetheless) in several very public areas that take pot shots at every last hero to pass by while often strongarming civilians. One randomly generated mission even has them attacking a bank to get "frozen assets". One would think that with a rap sheet like this, Crey would have been destroyed with utter impunity as priority number one, but they're still mentioned as having products in nearly every home and a respectable face. It's practically a whole organization Clark Kenting it up.

That's mainly an attempt to have the plot advance as you level up. High-level arcs involve Crey as nothing but the rogue remnants of their security forces after their Corrupt Corporate Executive faced trial for about a million charges.

Also from City of Heroes, Westin Phipps. To the general public, he is an unsung hero standing up for the weak and downtrodden against the threat of Arachnos. In truth, he is in the employment of said villainous organization, charged with finding whatever gives the people hope and driving it into the ground.

Possibly your character, in the first game; as the game's base assumption is that your character is evil, rather than choosing between being good or evil, your moral choice is whether to be an Ax-Crazy maniac who slaughters all in your path...or a Villain With Good Publicity who uses the respect and gratitude of the people to further your own evil ends.

In Overlord: Dark Legend, the above Overlord's predecessor, Lord Gromgard, has amazing publicity. His incompetent relatives have driven the kingdom to ruin, and the people are just so glad to finally have someone who knows what they're doing and can finally restore prosperity that they treat the whole "evil overlord" thing as little more than an amusing quirk.

You can also be a Villain With Good Publicity in Overlord II, but this time, it comes by mind controlling the populace into loving you, rather than genuinely earning their respect — you cruelly use them as tools, pawns, cannon fodder, and meat shields, but they have no choice but to be worshipful servants.

Tony Montana in Scarface: The World is Yours, despite his drug-dealing, becomes respected enough that he can talk citizens into surrendering their cars and cool off "heat" from gangs and the police with a snappy one-liner.

Umbrella had good publicity in Resident Evil until it was involved in Raccoon's destruction. Not only does the US government tear up all contracts with the company, their public stocks take a nosedive. In the movies, rather than the U.S. government nuking Raccoon City, it was Umbrella itself who did so, and they got off completely scot-free while making the survivors Heroes With Bad Publicity. By the time the public realizes any of the truth, the Zombie Apocalypse has begun, and they're still the only major human authority left.

Kane, resident Magnificent Bastard of Command & Conquer, attained much of his power in the First Tiberium War through clever manipulation of the media against the Global Defense Initiative, painting them as the very same violent, bloodthirsty murderers his own Brotherhood of Nod usually turned out to be. He continues his fine tradition in the Third Tiberium War, with the Brotherhood playing the only stabilizing influence in Earth's Yellow Zones, feeding and protecting the population of the economically ruined and poor regions of the world, all the better to stoke the fires of their hatred for the perceived oppressors of GDI... In the fourth game, he's actually working with the GDI to combat the tiberium threat.

In the scenario of Tekken 6, former Tragic Hero Jin becomes corrupted, takes over the Mishima Zaibatsu, and uses it for various atrocities. The people turned to the G Corporation, led by Kazuya, one of the series' villains (and ex-hero), as the savior of the world from the Zaibatsu, and Kazuya happily uses it to his advantage to try to get rid of Jin. Never mind that Kazuya is also evil and has done lots of atrocities with the Zaibatsu in the second series. Or maybe Jin's treatment are way worse. And before Jin took over, Heihachi was known to run the Zaibatsu as this — however, it turns out that Jin was in fact a Well-Intentioned Extremist who was attempting to draw out Azazel, the source of the Devil Gene, and destroy him.

For the first half of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf is one of the king's top aides and is well trusted by all but Zelda and Link, who know the evil man that Ganondorf is, but won't be taken seriously, part of the reason being that they're just kids and Zelda knows because of a dream. We all know how that turns out. Considering that Zelda's plan of action ends up giving Ganondorf the Triforce of Power, a holy relic which makes him effectively immortal and insanely powerful, the old Ganondorf is very, very preferable.

Dr. Wily in Mega Man 9. Failed several times and people still believe he can change.

In Mega Man Star Force 3, Mr. King is a well-renowned philanthropist whose King Foundation funds all manner of public works such as orphanages to benefit children. He's also the leader of the criminal syndicate Dealer, and uses said orphanages to create disposableTykebombs.

Lady Venus, The Under's biggest celebrity, and Mayor Es Cade of Phenac City from Pokémon Colosseum. The former is a Cipher Admin, the latter is the Big Bad, the true boss of Cipher.

Blake Hall from Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia is the president of Altru Inc., the largest corporation in Almia. He is highly popular among the citizens of Almia because he claims to have invented an efficient alternative to fossil fuels, but he drove his father from his own company because he didn't want to use the Dark Crystal, and his 'efficient energy source' involves using the Dark Crystal to make every Pokemon in the region his mindless slave.

In Escape from Monkey Island, Charles L. Charles (Big Bad Lechuck's alter ego) becomes one of these after winning the gubernatorial vote with his "Good Times, Free Grog" policy, which the local pirates cannot possibly resist.

Chairman Drek from Ratchet & Clank is this, as well as a Corrupt Corporate Executive, to the extent that he tears up and destroys entire planets and no one but a simple mechanic and a robot even thinks about trying to stop him. He's also the man who gives good PR to the otherwise useless superhero Captain Qwark. Qwark then does a Face–Heel Turn through the course of the game and, in the second game, tries to manufacture heroic publicity for himself by causing the Protopet disaster. The third game is then spent with much time under his command, believing he's going to turn on you before he fakes a Heroic Sacrifice, only to finally do some actual heroics at the end.

Ratchet: Deadlocked gives us an interesting subversion in Ace Hardlight, the champion of the DreadZone deathmatches. The Big Bad Gleeman Vox is a media mogul who is trying to promote Ace as The Ace (Wink wink) everyone should adore and therefore buy merchandise of, but apparently no one really wants any. Vox complains at the beginning of the game that he can't even give Ace products away.

Resident Evil 6 has this with Derek C. Simmons, the National Security Advisor who is also the head of a secret cabal known only as "the Family," who have had a hand in forming the modern world since at least the Colonial era. As the National Security Advisor, he was considered above suspicion of causing the Tall Oaks incident. It helped that he had set Helena up to take the fall prior to the outbreak and controlled all of the evidence implicating him... though he didn't count on the real Ada leaving Leon and Helena evidence that proves his guilt after his demise.

The Order of Zugzwang, the main villains of Dragon Quest V, use propoganda and servants to give the rest of the world the impression that they're a benevolent religious order that seeks to protect the world, when they actually seek to bring their ruler into the world so he can rule. By the third generation, they have human followers from around the world, and it's hard to go anywhere without hearing something about them.

Almost all games in the Final Fantasy series since VII use this as part of the main story:

In Final Fantasy VII, we have Shinra, who actively hides its atrocities and provides the planet with much needed electricity. (Plus, La Résistance has a tendency to induce civilian casualties in its activities.)

Cocoon of Final Fantasy XIII keeps the majority of its human citizens safe, so who cares if a few "undesirables" get exiled to Pulse?

In Final Fantasy Tactics, the true manipulators hide behind the shadows, using political and religious leaders as well as local legends to their advantage. The true hero gets written out of history as a heretic (though accounts of what really happened survivees).

The characters of Xenosaga don't actually know Wilhelm is the Big Bad until quite late in the third episode. Even to the player, his nature is ambiguous.

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty has Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. By the game's start, he's got most of the Dominion eating out of his hand, even though he was willing to let the Zerg eat everyone alive just a few years ago just to get into power. Then, Media Blitz happens, and his approval rating plummets to 14% at the highest.

The Warcraft series has a few like this. Queen Azshara of the night elves was responsible for the first demon invasion in The War of the Ancients, but her people loved her so much that until the very end they all believed that she was only a victim of her Deadly Decadent Court. Arcbishop Benedictus is the secret leader of the Old Gods worshipping Twilight's Hammer cult and tries to stop the players from saving the world at the end of World of Warcraft Cataclysm, but nobody believes the players who slew him. Finally, Kargath Bladefist is one of the most revered orcs of the Horde, with many locations named after him. When players have to kill him, the players are told to remember the hero he was in the past and not what he became because of demon corruption. Except he never was a hero; as revealed in Rise of the Horde, he was a member of the Shadow Council who sold his people to the demons for personnal power. A rare case where nobody, not even most players discovered his true nature.

Baron Widebeard from Nelly Cootalot manages to keep Saul Island and the Barony of Meeth under control, thanks to his major publicity stunts, enough entertainment and hospitality for a small island, and stealing gold from the Leprechauns and forcing the spoonbeaks into slavery.

In BlazBlue, the Ax-Crazy Jin Kisaragi is seen as a hero for ending the Ikaruga civil war.

inFAMOUS 2: Bertrand is this for quite some time... until Cole and Kuo photograph him using his conduit powers and creating the swamp monsters that have been plaguing New Marais.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Senator Armstrong, to the extent that he's a 2020 presidential candidate. Of course, this is at least partially because he doesn't write his own speeches, by his own admission.

Loghain from Dragon Age: Origins. One of the many problems the Warden faces during the game, is trying to prove that the war hero who fought for Ferelden's freedom during the Orlesian occupation, is the same man that callously left King Cailan to die during the Battle of Ostagar and pinned the blame on the Grey Wardens.

Loghain is actually an interesting example. Everyone acknowledges his heroic past, but the only parts of the country that actually support him are Gwaren (which is his fief), Amaranthine, belonging to his Psycho Supporter Rendon Howe, and Denerim, where his government is based. Highever is pissed at him for supporting a Howe coup against the ruling Cousland family, Redcliffe is led by the slain king's uncle, and most of the Bannorn hates his guts. It's actually rather easy to oust him, because his actions have pretty much eroded all of the nobility's good will by the time you're strong enough to challenge him, and only one nobleman supports him without question (because he's afraid Loghain will pillage his lands in retaliation).

In Dragon Age II, a Mage Hawke is seen as this from the warped perspective of Knight-Commander Meredith, being a troublesome Apostate who's allowed to roam free, sowing anarchy and chaos in their wake, because the people of Kirkwall see Hawke as their Champion. In a similar vein, Meredith regards a Non-Mage Hawke as a troublemaker who openly consorts with apostates and is plotting to subvert her authority. Of course, this is because Meredith sees herself as the hero of the story. She's not.

Ashnard of Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance is fondly remembered by his peasants even though he killed a thousand of them in addition to every other royal and noble. The invaders are bad but they only rule because Ashnard gave it to them. He's also indirectly responsible for the food shortage but his goal was to destroy to world. The peasants don't know the truth but his concubine does and still remembers him fondly.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, where Zelgius/ The Black Knight was viewed as an inspiring hero by Begnion and Daein, rspectively, even while he secretly worked to put his master's plan to induce the apocalypse into effect.

Sephiran/Lehran, as his real persona was revered as a Saint and beloved Prime Minister of Begnion, and his real identity was all the more beloved as one of the heroes that had defeated the ancient Goddess of Chaos. His PR is so good that we don't realize there's something not quite right until well into the 2nd game. Or the end of the first game, depending on what tone you attribute to his last piece of dialogue.

The Goddess Ashera herself, reverently worshiped as a benevolent deity by all peoples on Tellius, she was quite willing to kill them all. Most of the villains of Radiant Dawn are an example of Light Is Not Good, which explains why so many are so respected.

General Shepherd in Modern Warfare 2. He deliberately instigates a US-Russian war because he thinks America's become weak and pathetic, and he wants to make it a military power again. Even after Soap and Price successfully kill him, the public still thinks Shepherd is a war hero, and they are international terrorists.

In Professor Layton and the Unwound Future, the Prime Minister is the victim of the evil deeds of evil scientists for the whole game, up until the The Reveal, at which point it is shown that he is the unknown instigator of the whole plot due to his greed and want for power. He ran a dangerous scientific experiment to please investors, with fatal results; then swept the deaths under the rug and used the money he received to fund a political campaign. Both major antagonists want revenge for the loved ones they lost in the incident. He is the only unrepentant character in the original trilogy, and perhaps in the whole series, and yet he has never been shown paying the consequences.

In Saints Row: The Third, the Third Street Saints operate a massive media empire that has since made the members celebrities in the eyes of Stillwater. This includes taking the time to give autographs in the middle of a bank robbery to having cops you're in the middle of fighting ask you to autograph your weapons before putting them down. By the fourth game, The Boss has even become President of the United States.

The Ultor Corporation in the second game could also be seen as an example. On the surface, they're a respectable megacorporation, having (among other things) renovated the once-bad part of town that gives the series its name into an ultra-modern district, to the city's approval. Dig a little deeper, however, and they turn out to be just as corrupt and amoral as the gangs. In addition to working with the Brotherhood and Ronin, when the gang violence escalates they plan on encouraging the carnage so they can buy the bad parts of town, renovate it and sell it for large profit, and Chairman/CEO Dane Vogel knowingly sends the board of directors to their deaths at the hands of the protagonist after they turn on him.

The Big Bad of Tales of the Abyss starts off as one of these, to the point that when his sister (who overheard him talking about his plans with a subordinate) fails her attempt to kill him, she refuses to explain exactly why she was trying, apparently (and somewhat justifiably) believing that if she just came out and accused him of trying to destroy the world, she'd get laughed off and he'd get away with it.

The Light Side path for Sith characters often invoke this as the image the Empire should be trying to cultivate, having the secondary effect of making the Republic appear worse in comparison. Likewise, Light Sided options often use Pragmatic Villainy and Benevolent Alien Invasion tactics to bring planets (mostly) peacefully under Imperial control.

In the Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion, Emperor Valkorian of the Eternal Empire is definitely one of these. The Zakuul citizens have higher living standards than most Republic core worlds, to say nothing of the Sith Empire with its lousy infrastructure. And Valkorian, as far as any Zakuul citizen could tell, was the very model of a benevolent despot guided by The Force. Unfortunately for the rest of the galaxy, the Eternal Empire's prosperity and stability was only maintained because Valkorian was also Darth Vitiate, the Sith Empire's ruler, and was using the Sith Empire's constant warfare to gain greater power from all the deaths, draining entire planets to stay alive, and embezzling the spoils of war to fund Zakuul's coffers. The player's two Zakuul companions (Senya and Koth) find it a little hard to believe their cherished ruler was really such a monster.

Zachary Hale Comstock is seen as the Hero of Wounded Knee. See a description of that "battle" for why that term is not appropriate. Hell, the dude has even fashioned a religion based in his version of American Values and is often referred to as "The Prophet" in Columbia.

Handsome Jack, the Big Bad of Borderlands 2 is this; off of Pandora, he is seen as an incredibly noble, heroic figure who is bringing law and order to the ravaged Death World of Pandora. The reality is that he's a violent, murderous psychotic who is committing all manner of atrocities, including human testing of experimental mutagens. In-Universe, he was initially seen as a heroic figure when he first arrived on Pandora as well, but his subsequent actions made his nature quite clear to the people of Pandora.

In Robopon, Miss Amron, the Legend6 and a TV idol, uses TV to hypnotize her viewers into loving her. When the broadcast ceases, however, she becomes unpopular.

Aslik: Those stinkin' slaves— *notices camera is on* I mean, my fellow employees: Uncle Aslik's been taking good care of you, right? I love all of you like you was my own, right? BUT IF WE DON'T CATCH THIS ABE GUY, IT'S THE BREW VATS FOR ALL OF YOU!

In Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time, Cyrille La Paradox is described by Carmelita as this. He's believed by the world to be an esteemed art dealer who turned his life around after a prison sentence. He's actually using time travel to alter history to retroactively establish his industries as an N.G.O. Superpower.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2 has this example with Alex Wesker, the last of the Wesker clones. Before the events of the game, Wesker is on a small island, where she brings jobs and a better standard of living to the poor inhabitants. They celebrate her as a godsend. But it's all a cover for the horrible human experiments that she does on the people behind the scenes. The people mostly had no idea until it was too late. Many documents found throughout the game highlight this point, repeatedly.

Grand Theft Auto 2: The Zaibatsu Corporation is a prominent and powerful crime syndicate with a private army of armed thugs and a fleet of Z-Types that patrol the streets in droves and partake in many criminal activities, including using a radio station at one point to broadcast a signal that puts people listening to it in a murderous frenzy. Despite this, they seem to only be known by the general public as an energy company that also sells (among other things) pharmaceuticals.

"Oh, it looks so easy in the movies, but keeping it up can be a real problem!"

There is an internet media company called Blume. They are responsible for the ctOS technology that is supposed to keep the whole city of Chicago wired, making communication easy for the citizens. However, you find out that Blume is monitoring everyone unknowingly, and is using some of the information as blackmail against others and to secretly impose a Police State on the citizens of Chicago, as well as perform assassinations against anyone they can't control. After the events of the game, Blume is able to maintain their good publicity status by covering up their actions, which is reported during the ending credits. And after the credits, a Blume commercial is shown, promoting version 2.0 that expands their operations beyond the city of Chicago and is now nationwide.

Lucky Quinn holds charity events alongside Chicago's mayor under public eye, but is actually a murderer and a mob boss.

The Empire of Niflheim seems to be on in Final Fantasy XV in that it's well supported by the people of the countries they conquered. From the look of things, they've managed to convince Prince Ravus that Insomnia is the one that killed the royalty of Tenebrae and managed to convince those under Lucis rule that they're there to liberate them and bring equality to the people.

The person who killed both Neil Marshall and Bruce Goodman in "Rise from the Ashes" is Damon Gant, the police chief. He's good friends with the judge, making your case even more difficult.

Justice For All's last villain, Matt Engarde. Rather than dirtying his own hands, he hired professional assassinShelly de Killer to kill his rival actor, and then had De Killer force a lawyer to save his ass through taking his loved ones hostage, and tried to frame his manager for it. Even if he's not the only Villain With Good Publicity, he's the most notable in the series, especially since we only have a confirmation that he's a villain midway through the case. Even before he's convicted, his many misdeeds are exposed in court on the last day of the trial, and the judge tells him that even if he can't convict him, it has become clear that he's a despicablehuman being.

Renowned defense attorney and Apollo's mentor Kristoph Gavin kills both Shadi Smith and Drew Misham in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. This contributes to the first case of the game being a Wham Episode.

In Investigations we have sweet old Quercus Alba, kind ambassador and decorated war hero. And murderous head of a smuggling ring.

The Big Bad of Dual Destinies, and killer of Cases 4 and 5, is none other than the man disguised as Bobby Fulbright, that detective who speaks of justice with pride.

The killer in Case 1, Pees'lubn Andistan'dhin, is the head monk of Tehm'pul Temple. He also teaches dahmalan lessons, and is respected by the judge.

The one who kills Justice Minister Inga in Case 5 is none other than the queen of Khura'in, Ga'ran. This makes it very, very difficult to prove them guilty.

Dr. Mitsuhito Amagasaki of Corpse Party: Cross Fear is seen by his coworkers as an excellent psychatrist with a strong work ethic. Unfortunately, what none of them realize is how much time he actually spends tormenting his patients, taking advanatage of them at their most vulnerable.

Web Comics

In a Saturday Morning Breakfast Cerealstrip, Superman is this: He's actually an alien invader who deluded people into thinking that he was saving them, eventually deluding himself along with his human victims. Another strip (published the previous week) features Superman harming people, hiding his tracks by murdering journalists who are on to him, and then get public support for his noble quest to find the killer.

In 8-Bit Theater, the Light Warriors intend to become this after White Mage defeats Chaos by hogging all the credit. However, White Mage instead makes their Harmless VillainCounterparts, the Dark Warriors, this instead.

There is also Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer!, who has a heroic reputation amongst the common folk of Europa, despite being a spark-killing maniac. Well, let's be fair: it's because he is a spark-killing maniac. Othar is completelymostly harmless to people who are not sparks and their minions, clanks or monsters, and specifically wants to kill all sparks and their creations because of the mess most of them put normal people in. While this is bad news for our protagonists, who are all sparks, it makes him a hero to the rest of the population (who generally don't like sparks much). Aside from this, there's the fact he's also a spark, and completely nuts.

Thog as the reigning champion gladiator is one of these in the Empire of Blood. To the heroes and General Tarquin, he's a mass murdering Psychopathic Man Child with no regard for his victims. He is so badass and entertaining in the arena that the citizenry don't care and love him anyway. He is so popular that Tarquin can't just have him quietly assassinated in the night.

King Radical in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja paints himself as a friendly neighborhood gangster who supposedly helps the community by investing his ill-gotten gains in things like orphanages. In fact much of the audience wasn't sure he really was a villain until he launched his plan to replace all the world's "boring" people with cool people from his home dimension. And even after he assassinates the president and takes over he's very popular.

Web Original

CaptainHammer takes this to the logical extreme: everyone thinks he's a hero. To the titular Anti-Villain, however, he is most definitely the bad guy.

The Kronies action figures. A political spoof of Crony capitalism where the villains are represented as heroes and vice versa.

Michelle Clore from KateModern, a world-famous Reclusive Artist who also happens to be the ruthless evil mastermind behind everything that goes wrong on the show. Similarly, Rupert Van Helden is the author of various books that provide inspiration to Hymn of Oners everywhere, but is actually a lying, wife beating hypocrite.

In Worm, several of the heroes are this, such as Shadow Stalker, Assault, The Triumverate and, as his plan comes to fruition, Coil. This is also a problem with the Directors of the PRT on severallevels.

Skitter and the Undersiders eventually become this.

Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation states this is how an villain should truly act and why he sees moral choice stupid since all the evil actions one can chose pretty much just make you Obviously Evil.

Season 12 had Locus and Felix, two halves of the same mercenary team. Together, they managed to plunge the planet of Chorus into civil war and sabotaged multiple attempts at peace, each one convincing his side that he hated his "former" partner and maintaining great report with his side. Only an Engineered Public Confession by Felix managed to stop the civil war.

Even more so is UNSC Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Malcom Hargrove, who despite his well liked status is the person who hired Locus and Felix in the first place.

X-Ray and Vav had The Mad King in this position during the second half of Season Two. He's able to take back his company, win the hearts of the city and make X-Ray and Vav look pathetic in front of the mightier Mogar (which isn't really that hard) as well as turn the two against each other and be all-around awesome while initiating a plot to gain amazing powers by making people drink the milk from Mogar's mother, then sap it away for himself. The only thing that stops him is having him have a Villainous Breakdown.

Western Animation

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, it's made clear that citizens of the Fire Nation are fundamentally good people who happen to be lead by evil people, and they all genuinely believe that Ozai and his family are wise, just leaders trying to share the Fire Nation's glory with the rest of the world. The fact that Ozai is an absolute ruler with total control over the school system and the media makes it pretty easy for him to achieve this; it's at the point where he doesn't even need to worry (or at least, not care) about spinning a genocide, since his people already accepted one as necessary a century ago. To be fair, it's not clear how well-known the plan to destroy the entire Earth Kingdom was in the Fire Nation.

Mom in Futurama appears as a sweet, lovable old lady in public, but is really a Corrupt Corporate Executive. She may not always be planning to take over the world, but it is canon that she intends total global (or more) economic domination.

Zapp Brannigan also counts as one, a narcissistic, oversexed boob who is incompetent at best, but keeps his job because people still somehow think of him as a hero.

Gargoyles: Xanatos went to prison at one point, and still manages to be this.

In Gravity Falls, everyone in town and in his audience sees Li'l Gideon as a cute, lovable child. It quickly becomes clear that he is anything but. He loses it in the season 1 finale when it's revealed by Stan that his psychic powers are really him spying on the town.

The Northwest family are popular, well-respected aristocrats, going back to Nathaniel Northwest, the founder of the Gravity Falls. Turns out Nathaniel Northwest was just labeled "the founder" so the government could cover up the existence of President Quentin Trembley, and he was a selfish crook who cheated the townspeople out of a grand party after they gave flesh and blood to build him a mansion. Preston Northwest himself is only the latest in a long line of cheats, and behind closed doors, he abuses and controls his own daughter Pacifica, who seems to be breaking the cycle of bad Northwests.

The Equalists' Evil Genius Hiroshi Sato kept up this act for twelve yearsafter the death of his wife at the hands of a firebending gang left him with a hatred for all benders. He gives up the act in the same episode it's revealed to be an act with The Reveal of his latest invention: a Mini-Mecha capable of curbstomping all but the most skilled benders.

Invoked by Amon when he stated this as a major part of his plan needing followers to accomplish what he was doing, therefore avoiding actions that would put him in a negative light until he had enough. He was incredibly successful, amassing enough followers to threaten all of Republic City.

Varrick is well respected in the Southern Water Tribe and Republic City. However, he's very devious behind closed doors such that he blew up the Southern Water Tribe Cultural Center, defrauded and nearly bankrupted Future Industries to force Asami to give him controlling interest, and attempted to kidnap the President, all of which was part of his plan to escalate the Water Tribe Civil War. He does he get caught later on, [[spoiler:but his whole plan went south anyways, because he didn't count on Vaatu being involved.

The Red Lotus became instant folk heroes to the downtrodden of Ba Sing Se after assassinating the Earth Queen. Played with, however, in that Zaheer dodges around revealing his identity or those of his cronies.

Kuvira; to the people she's helping she's called The Great Uniter, and she has spent the last three years forcing the fractured Earth Kingdom back together (although there are hints that she's doing so to secure her own power base). It get to the point that when she usurps the Crown Prince at his own coronation and declares herself Emperor, she is cheered on by the crowds. However, she does lose it later on, but that doesn't bother her.

Looney Tunes: Fresh Airedale, a 1945 Chuck Jones cartoon, concerns a "loyal, trustworthy" dog named Shep who gobbles up his master's steak, invites a burglar to ransack the house when the master's away at work, and attempts to kill the nation's "# 1 dog" after reading about him in the paper. A cat repeatedly foils the dog's schemes, but ends up taking the blame for them.

Metalocalypse: Dethklok doesn't count since they aren't the series villains. Their manager, however...

Zigzagged with Abraham Kane in Motorcity, he presents himself as a savior to the survivors of humanity by constructing Detroit Deluxe, a clean "utopia" that's anything but, and constantly portrays the Burners as ruffians and villains. In practice his reception is mixed, some people like and revere him, buying into all the propaganda, some defect and run away from his crazy world, many are just dissatisfied with his controlling of all their lives, but stick with him because, aside from some short-sighted violence he indulges in, the lifestyle is manageable.

The Secret Saturdays has V.V. Argost, who hosts a popular TV show about cryptids and is well-liked around the world to the extent that, when the protagonists begin to fight him in a public place, the citizens actually side with Argost in the fight and attack them.

Parodied with Montgomery Burns. Despite being a textbook Card-Carrying Villain, he often strives—and always fails—to portray himself either as a sensitive, kindly soul (his autobiography is titled Will There Ever Be a Rainbow?) or as a benevolent super-being (in his film festival entry, he portrays himself as both E.T. and Jesus). Furthermore, when he loses his plant (and in one case, his entire fortune as well) and Springfielders are free to openly hate and mock him, Burns is genuinely shocked that they feel that way.

Jebediah Springfield, the town's founder, is believed by the citizens to be a heroic pioneer who wrestled bears. In truth, as revaled by his confession found in "Lisa the Iconoclast", he was a Fake Ultimate Hero. He was actually Hans Sprungfeld a notorious pirate with a silver tongue (literally, he lost his tongue to a Turk in a groghouse fight and had it replaced with a prosthetic silver tongue) who tried to assassinate George Washington.

Setting aside what anybody actually thought of President Bush, this could be considered somewhat inverted in the South Park episode Mystery of the Urinal Deuce. All throughout the episode, the President and the White House are made out to be evil people who caused the 9-11 attacks, a conspiracy perpetrated by themselves. Then, at the end, we find out that none of this is true, and the reason they perpetrated the hoax was so that people would think the government had everything under control.

In The Spectacular Spider-Man, Norman Osborn(who is secretly the Green Goblin) is still an example of this due to the fact that he a ruthless businessman, inventor, gifted chemist, the founder and head of Os Corp, and the father of Harry Osborn.

Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk in the 1990s Spider-Man: The Animated Series. He's a well-respected member of the community. Peter Parker doesn't even know he's a criminal mastermind until late in the season, and, at one point, saves him from an attack by the Hobgoblin during a ground-breaking ceremony.

Norman Osborn is also a Villain With Good Publicity in all versions: Muggles don't know about his criminal activity as a businessman or as the Green Goblin. In this particular series, the other crime lords are the same: even Spidey thought Silvermane was a nice old man.

Dr. Paradigm of Street Sharks certainly counts. He manages to convince the entire city that the sharks and their father are the real bad guys, essentially ensuring that they blame everything wrong on them. On the other hand, that's the only plan of his that actually works. The Sharks finally manage to put a dent on his credibility by forcing him to assume his Pirahnoid form on national TV.

Oroku Saki himself during a previous season (3) of the Turtles revamp. By singlehandedly funding the rebuilding of New York City after an alien invasion, he was hailed as a hero and humanitarian. While this troper can't recall any time this directly affected the Turtles' efforts against him (being ninjas and mutant freaks, they have to work in secrecy anyway), it was still irritating. And the public was never the wiser, even constructing a library in his honor when he was finally defeated by the Turtles.

And then there's Chris Bradford in the 2012 TMNT cartoon. He's one of Shredder's Co-Dragons and star pupils, and also a well-respected martial arts superstar with a chain of dojos all over the United States.

Chris Mclean in the Total Drama series, the show's animator, may be considered as such by the way he creates dangerous challenges and tweaks the rules to his own sadistic liking.

Porter C. Powell in Transformers Animated. Not only did he exploit Sari's lack of a birth certificate to make himself the legitimate CEO of Sumdac Systems (then again, she's only eight), but he also made expert use of legal loopholes to justify his hiring of mad scientist Henry "Headmaster" Masterson. He's shady and corrupt, even getting out of even more legal trouble with his matter-eating virus. He's kicked out of the company when Isaac returns, but continues to do business by selling Soundwave toys. After they're revealed as the real Soundwave's minions, the backlash finally puts him out of business. His return in the almanac mentions him having a few more resources at his disposal, which he used to get an AllSpark fragment... which backfired by turning his car into a Decepticon named Tux, who drained the rest of his resources.

Wheel Squad: Enzo is an example of the trope. The most of what we get to see of the good publicity part was in "Water, Water, Everywhere". The heroes took photographs linking him to a scheme of illegal waste dumping that was contaminating the community's water supply and he managed to explain it away by claiming he was there to investigate and help. Fortunately, in order to give credence to these claims, he had to finance a project to de-pollute the water supply.

The Brotherhood in X-Men: Evolution episode "No Good Deed". The only ones to realize they're up to no good are the X-Men (who they frame for violently using their powers) and Edward Kelly (who doesn't know they're up to no good, but assumes they are because they're mutants).

Edward Kelly himself is one to some extent. To many, he's a noble principal who wants to help his students, and to the Muggles, he is legitimately a good principal, he's just such a massive racist against mutants that he tries to encourage fellow mutant hater Duncan to team up with the Brotherhood just so they can pick a fight with Cyclops and get him, and him only, expelled simply for being a good mutant.

Captain Good in Yogi's Space Race. Everyone in that series sees him as a hero but he's actually Phantom Phink.

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